Increase and multiply
“Increase and multiply!” God told Adam, the first Man, in Genesis 1:28. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” One rule: “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die” (Genesis 3:3)
“Eat, and you will be like God,” the Serpent tempted. Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit and so they were banished from the fully enlightened ambience of the Garden of Eden, where there was peace and harmony among all creatures in Creation.
In the mortal world, Good and Evil constantly fight to win over Man. Death is unescapable, as a reminder of that end in time, of the struggle to return to harmonious Eternity in Eden. Man’s first sin against Man in the temporal world was when Adam’s son, Cain, killed his brother Abel. Power “over everything that moves on the earth” became an obsession of Fallen Man. Greed and corruption, killing and stealing were prevalent in the competitive struggle for dominance and survival. God was unhappy with this. He found one just man among the descendants of Seth: Noah.
God said to Noah, “I am going to destroy all flesh because the world is full of violence. Build an ark of gopherwood, with rooms inside, three decks, and a door. Cover it inside and out with pitch.” And Noah did exactly as God commanded him (Genesis 6:13–22).
Rain poured for 40 days and the resulting floods stayed for 150 days, destroying all living things except those whom God permitted Noah to bring with him on the ark: Noah and his wife; their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japeth and their wives (eight humans); seven pairs each, a male and a female, of all clean animals and birds; one pair each, a male and a female of all unclean animals and birds (Genesis 7:1-5).
“I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done,” God promised Noah after the Flood. “Increase and multiply and fill the earth,” God said to Noah (Genesis 9:7) as He had said to Adam.
Call the story of Genesis “historical narrative” or even folklore, if one does not believe in “God Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible” or other Supreme Being or Principle who rules over Mankind. Genesis, which starts from the creation of Adam, is a central starting story for the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Even for a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God, or believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena — basic human intuition and logic gained from empirical experience in living and dying must urge the acceptance that Man by himself cannot control human existence. Natural laws call on the peaceful co-existence of living creatures.
And so the world worries about the growing or declining population, and its burden on economics (competition, gains, and survival) and socio-politics (power and influence, hierarchies and dependencies).
As of Jan. 1, 2024, the world’s population was 8,019,876,189, up 75,162,541 (0.95%) from New Year’s Day 2023, according to estimates of the US Census Bureau’s International Database (IDB) for 227 countries and equivalent areas, plus 15,237 subnational areas. Through January 2024, 4.3 births and 2.0 deaths were expected every second worldwide. (Trending is refined through the focus year.) Around 108 billion people have ever lived on our planet. This means that today’s population size makes up 6.5% of the total number of people ever born (ourworldindata.org).
Demographers study birth rates and death rates, which affect the level of natural change (increase or decrease) within a population. Emigration and immigration, quite common in globalization, adjust individual countries’ population growth rates. Other factors that affect the change in a population’s growth include the impact of urbanization (easier access to medical facilities, medical technology, and medicine), the emancipation of women (women working, fewer or delayed pregnancies), agricultural changes (more food production, shift of labor to industry), and education (health and hygiene, family planning), according to a UK study (coolgeography.co.uk).
The population of the Philippines on January 2024 was 119,106,224, 1.47% of the total world population. The Philippines is ranked No. 13 of countries with a population of more than 100 million, with China and India each having more than one billion people. The population grew 1.51% (1,768,856) from last year 2023. This considers a net migration of -69,996 meaning more people have gone out of the country than those who came in. The total fertility rate (TFR) is 2.67 live births per reproductiveage woman, with the TFR steadily declining since 1970, when it was 6.20.
The urban population makes up 47.4% of the total, having grown from 31.5% in 1970 — indicating the movement to the cities and/or urbanization of erstwhile rural areas to serve the economic and social needs of the growing population. The problem with urbanization is the “crowding out” principle, where opportunities and resources are easily taken by the powerful (e.g., the rich), leaving little for the weak (e.g., the poor). The Gini ratio representing the income and wealth inequality in the Philippines per the World Bank is at 40.70 (as at 2021) reflecting a large gap between a country’s richest and poorest citizens.
Population growth and distribution has been a critical planning parameter for the country’s bid to keep pace with the exciting rise of the developing ASEAN region that started in the 1970s. Republic Act No. 6365 (Aug. 16, 1971) established the National Population Program and created the Commission on Population (PopCom). However, little — or more like nothing — concrete was accomplished in the policymaking, planning, coordinating, and monitoring of the Population Program until Republic Act No. 10354, The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act or Reproductive Health Law (RH Law), was passed in 2012. It provided universal access to methods on contraception, fertility control, sex education, and maternal care in the Philippines.
There was much controversy and opposition raised by the Catholic clergy on the RH Law, especially on the availability of contraceptives and their distribution to the poor. The use of contraceptives is prohibited by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. But after a three-year appeal raised to the Supreme Court, it was decided that the RH Law was not unconstitutional. Its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) was signed on March 15, 2013.
It has now been 11 years since the RH Law’s IRR was passed and meant to weave itself into the lives of Filipinos. Has it been effective in ordering better harmony in society? Controversy still rages, even among the implementors of the Law — modules for sex education in schools have not been standardized; some local government units (LGUs) seem to be still fumbling with family planning services
and the handling of selective free contraceptives. And there’s finger-pointing over budget allocations for the administration and implementation of this very specialized program. And somehow it has expanded from population control to discussions of women’s rights, human rights, and gay rights.
The chaos and confusion might intuitively beg questions in one’s conscience: why is all this turmoil happening? What have I got to do with this? How is this going to end? The answer might not be a practical one — not like the Great Flood that drowned all creatures except Noah’s family of eight and representative pairs of animals and birds.
“Increase and multiply,” God said to Noah after the flood, as He said to Adam in the beginning of time. From the eight people from Noah’s Ark, there are now eight billion people in the temporal world — “temporary” for sure, because of the sureness of death. Instinctively, Man wants survival for oneself, but must also respect the right of others to live. Thou shalt not kill.
The RH Law only prescribes and makes available population control measures and means for the better practical life for Filipinos. Each person has the power of choice and instinctive moral guidance on surviving in our crowded earth.